Who Says Vacations Have to be Expensive?

Ryan and I love to travel, visit new places, revisit old places, and make memories...but traveling can get ridiculously expensive. While we don't have kids {and therefore realize we save some travel expenses}, we are down to one income, and therefore we have to be frugal about things like vacations.

We commented to each other that our last vacation was so much fun, and yet we spent very little on it! I thought I would throw out some of the things we did to make it affordable, and maybe an idea or two will help you see that vacations don't have to be expensive to be fun...and maybe you can afford more fun than you think!

1. Creative Financing

This time around, our vacation was financed by the Great Yard Sale of 2015. We saved the money we earned at the sale and put all of it toward various expenses of our vacation. I loved it, because it didn't dig into our savings, AND because the yard sale prep had been my "job" in my early days of not working full time, so it felt like I contributed to this adventure. I know some people finance vacations by making them a gift. So maybe instead of getting each other birthday or anniversary gifts - or even Christmas gifts for a whole family - they go somewhere instead. Some people use money earned from a side/hobby job to pay for vacations. Some people use loans. This I know from my loan office job. Don't do that, please oh please, okay?


2. Creative Housing

This time around, we had the privilege of having friends in the area of the first half of our vacation, and they graciously allowed us to sleep at their home for four nights. Saving four nights of hotel bills was a HUGE help on our vacation budget, so if you're able to swing something like that, go for it! But most of the time, we are not that fortunate. Ryan is the designated hotel-finder in our family. He will do hours of research, looking for the best places to stay, reading reviews, hunting for deals, etc. We've saved money by vacationing during the week instead of the weekend, staying three nights at one hotel {which sometimes gets us a huge discount} and avoiding off-peak seasons for destinations. Ryan will often call and ask about additional discounts and sometimes he can get them and sometimes he can't. We also try to stay at a hotel that offers a free continental breakfast so we can get a great meal to start our day...for no extra money. {And while they're fun to have, skipping the need for an impressive view can save you some cash. After all...you SLEEP at a hotel, not stay up all night looking out the window.}


3. Creative Eating

Part of the fun of going on vacation is finding local places to eat and trying something you couldn't get at home. We did that {more than once} on our trip, and we found some great spots. But eating out at local, sit-down restaurants for every meal can get expensive after while. We saved money by {when possible} taking leftovers back to our hotel {we always try to get rooms with a fridge and microwave} and eating them at another meal. We also did settle for dollar menus sometimes - and we packed all our own snacks before we left home, to save us the expense of gas station and vending machine purchases.


4. Creative Entertainment

Thinking back over our vacation...I think the only things we paid to do were go up in the Cape Henry Lighthouse {$8 per person} and go up in the observation deck at Niagara Falls {$1 per person}. That is not bad for an eight day vacation, is it? We spent a day at the beach in Virginia Beach, and although it wasn't warm enough to swim, it was warm enough to walk the beach, walk the boardwalk, enjoy the views, and if we'd wanted, we could have played games on the beach or sat for a while. All that is free. When we went to Williamsburg, there were opportunities to buy tickets to go into buildings and museums, but we were satisfied with seeing everything from the outside and didn't feel we'd missed out by not going in. Walking the streets was completely free. While we anticipated paying a fee to enter Letchworth State Park, we didn't have to. I'm not sure why they weren't charging that day, but they weren't, so we got in free. {Even if we would have had to pay, a cost of five to ten dollars for our car would have been WELL worth the views.} All the trails were free to hike. And then at Niagara, though we had planned to ride the Maid of the Mist boat {$17 per person}, we elected not to and felt that we had a GREAT time at the Falls walking the areas that were free {or $1.00}. And some of those places still allowed us to get SO CLOSE to the water!


5. Creative Souvenirs

Ahhhh the eternal question: what to bring home from vacation? There's no right or wrong answer of course, but we really like the souvenir tradition we started. We get a Christmas ornament from each place we visit, and then every Christmas, we have one tree that's devoted to our memories as a couple. It makes it nice when we're traveling, because we don't have to figure out what to look for; we just hunt for ornaments. And while ornaments can get very expensive, we've learned you can usually find a nice one for well under $10.00. I think we purchased six ornaments on this vacation, so the cost was minimal, and we'll have those in all the years of our marriage to come....to hang on our trees!


6. Creative Memory-Capturing

Our favorite part about vacation is the chance to make memories we can look back on for the rest of our lives. Thankfully the digital age of pictures has arrived, and I could snap away to my heart's content without worrying about the cost of film/developing. {How EVER would I have survived as a photo-loving adult in those days??} Our biggest investment in this vacation, other than time spent together and resting, was investing in good photos of scenery and in fun photos of our time together. And now that I'm home, I'm working hard on a scrapbook to capture every story, every photo {yes, all 1000 of them}, and then we'll have that for always. The only cost for me will be to print the book when it's done, and I'll wait for a good sale on that, so it won't be horrible.


That's how we do vacations as cost-effectively as possible in Shafferland. It's not an exhaustive list, but hopefully it helps!